OTTAWA—Lacking the $5–7 million major private funding required by the February 28 deadline this week, the community concert hall project in downtown Ottawa will not be going ahead as hoped.
Besides being a world-class cultural landmark expected to boost tourism and other business activity in the area, the hall would have filled the great need for a local affordable, acoustically suitable, mid-size venue for live performances and sound recording.
"I give the group a lot of praise for the work that they've done," said Peter Honeywell, executive director of the Council for the Arts in Ottawa.
"It's a big job," he said, "but I think they've reached the point that they're saying, 'we've turned over as many stones as we can, and we're just not able to find that major donor.'"
The Ottawa Chamber Music Society (OCMS) has been spearheading the $38 million project with the support of more than 30 local arts organizations, including the folk, blues, and jazz festivals; choral groups; and other music groups and enthusiasts.
The OCMS presents the acclaimed Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival every summer, the world's largest festival of its kind.
Fundraising effort were still taking place the day before the City of Ottawa's deadline.
"We are not planning to seek an extension, and we are still, believe it or not, working on a few opportunities," said Glenn Hodgins, executive director of the OCMS on February 27.
However, "at this point I can't say I am overly optimistic," he added.
The project began in 2004. Council had twice extended the original September 2006 deadline, first to November 30, 2007, then to February 28, 2008.
The combined government funding and corporate and individual funding is at about $25.5 million.
This includes approximately $6 million each from Ottawa and the province of Ontario, and a pledge of up to $8 million from the federal government. The project has about $1.5 million of private funding from individuals, and developer Morguard Developments had committed $3.8 million to cover the cost of building the shell of the hall.
The project had also planned to launch a public fundraising campaign over the next three years to raise a further $5–6 million for an endowment fund to cover operating costs.
"It is a pity, and we're all disappointed, of course, but at a certain point it's just not meant to be" said Hodgins.
"It's unfortunate because they were very successful with their government funding from all three levels, [but] they could not find a corporation or a large donation that would come through to assist at the end," said Honeywell.
Hodgins also noted "the irony of it is that we have all of this public funding in place. Usually it's the other way around, you have the private funding, and you have a hard time getting the public funding."
The difficulty with finding a naming sponsor in Ottawa is that the city has a lot of government but not a lot of large industries that can provide significant financial backing, like in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, said Kanata North city councillor Marianne Wilkinson, a key supporter of the project.
"The need for the hall still exists," Honeywell said. He believes Ottawa will see it come back in another form in the future, "maybe in another location or in another project where the concert hall could be incorporated."
The hall was identified as one of five top infrastructure priorities under the Ottawa 20/20 Arts and Heritage Plan adopted by city council in 2003.
The plan anticipated that the hall would help revitalize the downtown core and provide major economic benefits to the restaurants, retailers, hotels, and overall tourism industry in the area. It would also fill a longstanding gap in the availability of space and acoustic staging in Ottawa for medium-sized performances and music recording.
Ottawa's National Arts Centre (NAC) is a fine institution, said Hodgins, but the spaces there are built for large performances or for theatre rather than music. Moreover, the rental costs are prohibitive for local non-profit groups and festivals.
The proposed 925-seat hall "is smaller, partly because of the acoustic principles we're aiming for, but it's [also] more intimate." It is specialized for acoustic musical performance—such as chamber, jazz, folk, and blues music that is not intended to be amplified.
Adjustable acoustics were planned to make it adaptable for all musical styles and musicians, however, including choirs, orchestras, and others, both locally and internationally. The facility design included a state-of-the-art recording studio, which even the NAC Orchestra had planned to use for its smaller performances and recordings. Several broadcasting and recording companies had also shown interest in using the facility.
Feeds